PhotonsToPhotos does the Canon EOS R5 Mark II and it’s good

[Baywoof]

I mean I probably would plan to save my 4k if I already owned an r5, but I don’t see how better AF, higher frame rates, less rolling shutter, and pre capture don’t benefit stills shooters. If all you do is landscape, then I’d argue it’s time to move on to MF (though if canon manages to do something like DGO in stills in the future, that could change that calculus).

Regarding A1 vs A7RV, the dynamic range is not meaningfully different from the A1. In fact I would argue all of these modern full frames have dynamic ranges close enough to each other that it shouldn’t be the primary decision maker. And the a7r5 sensor is drastically slower (100ms instead of 6).

Now of course it is worth noting that the R5 ii is brand new and the Sony cameras are not. The next iterations of those will probably surpass Canon in many respects. Likewise with the z8/z9. And then eventually the r5iii.

 

[Baywoof]

If sensor speed (while meaningful) is your primary criteria for comparing and rating cameras and images, that's your opinion. I don't believe I will miss anything not upgrading to an R5 II. If Sony, Nikon, or even Canon introduces a camera that is much more of an innovation (like the R5, Z7, A7, etc.) rather than an incremental update in terms of the quality of images it can produce, it would be worthy of consideration and a purchase. On medium format cameras, they are enticing. The major downside to MF, other than the price, is the lack of lens choices that are available and affordable. It would be interesting if other camera makers see this as a market possibility rather than producing hybrid cameras with the fast sensors you may want.

 

[SvO2]

If sensor speed (while meaningful) is your primary criteria for comparing and rating cameras and images, that's your opinion.

No one said that. But just because you personally don’t care for those attributes doesn’t mean they have no value

I don't believe I will miss anything not upgrading to an R5 II. If Sony, Nikon, or even Canon introduces a camera that is much more of an innovation (like the R5, Z7, A7, etc.) rather than an incremental update in terms of the quality of images it can produce, it would be worthy of consideration and a purchase.

And that’s okay. These days it probably does not make sense to upgrade every generation. But the features mentioned are still relevant to photographers of various genres. Landscape and portrait shooters may not see much benefit, but for anything where the subject matter moves, there can be pretty big benefit.

On medium format cameras, they are enticing. The major downside to MF, other than the price, is the lack of lens choices that are available and affordable. It would be interesting if other camera makers see this as a market possibility rather than producing hybrid cameras with the fast sensors you may want.

Price wise the 100S/II isnt really much worse than the high end FF bodies. The lens selection is getting better too. Glancing through the catalog, Fuji seems to have most of the useful ranges already filled out.

As far as the other manufacturers supporting a larger format- I have my doubts. E mount is already borderline too small for the FF format, and I think the RF and Z mounts would have had larger openings if a larger sensor was ultimately planned. I suppose in theory they could increase the sensor size if they’re willing to let go of or limit IBIS. But I don’t think there’s a ton of demand for that from their existing customers.

Canon did say their goal with the RF lenses was to eventually support much higher sensors than the 45MP available. I suspect we’ll get a ~96MP sensor when they’re able to get the rest of the system capable of dealing with the bandwidth required. Such a sensor would support 12K video, and Canon’s strategy as of late seems to be matching the sensor width to the various video formats

 

[Darecinema]

Right.


Actually, not all of it (mea culpa) ... once I started to get a taste of what it was going to say, it didn't seem like it would be very interesting so I kind of skipped ahead because it seemed like it was going to be a boring read about Canon being better because Canon (that was bsed on the cameras you chose to compare the R5-II against.) Sorry.

Let me just expand on what your choice of cameras to compare against it means (to me.) The only reason I'd buy the R5 series from Canon is becuase it is the only MILC that Canon sells with more than 24MP. In comparing it with the A9, the difference in DR is highlighted whilst ignoring the fact that the A9 has a global shutter and the R5-II does not. If you're shooting sports or video, global shutter can be worth far more to you than DR (no jello effect.) But I'm not interested in the A9, nor the A1. The comparison to the Z8 was almost more interesting except that it isn't in an attractive price bracket whereas the Z7-II is. To me it looks like you picked cameras to compare the R5-II favourably against, which doesn't really tell me much.



Interesting hypothesis. Don't know how that gets tested.



I need glasses. I meant to write Z7-II (the Z7-III isn't on the other website and isn't what I looked at there.)



I mentioned A7RV, not A7RIV (your typo?). Either way, I don't care that it only does 4K60p. Your story is about the photonstophotos website & it judges results for photographs, not videos. But I suppose you're trying to do a "well the R5-II also does...", to which I'll say what I've said before: 8K is a dead format for consumers. DOA. Worse than 3D for 1080p. I want to take photos, hence I take note of photonstophotos and 10fps is more than enough. If I cared about video, I'd look elsewhere. Is 10fps enough? Well that's the same as the 1D Mark III, which was aimed at sports photographers who were able to get the shot. I think if I was a sports photographer with the R5-II, I'd just stop taking photos and use 8k video and grab stills from that.

Next thing you know there will be ads for the R5-II on cable shopping channels because the R5-II does everything you want and even more., order now and to get your free set of steak knives!



I take your point and it is a valid argument to make. I think it is important to keep it mind because when using the chart, you're not necessarily comparing apples with apples with respect to DR that's in the files. Apples to unside down pears maybe.



Thanks for the offer, I seem to be having enough trouble reading, might need to fix that before I start writing.

Just out of curiousity, do you still own and use Canon cameras or what are you currently shooting with? How does it perform in the real world? No snark intended, I’m genuinely curious.

 

[Darecinema]

Yet I've seen comparisons of real-world MF images to FF and even crop sensor images and it is amazing how few differences there really are.

As for "better"....I have no doubt the R5 II is perhaps one of the best MILCs ever released. It, arguably, is the best general purpose MILC available today. It also addressed almost every small quibble I have the R5. Well done Canon.

But I am wondering how marginal "better" is in this instance. Right or wrong, I am thinking back to the 1DX to 1DX II evolution. As hyped as the 1DX II was at the time (20.2 MP!!! 14 fps continuous shooting!!!), in hindsight, it was pretty marginal. Even the memory cards did not survive to the next iteration.

As someone considering upgrading but also thinking of standing pat with the R5:

• Better AF you say? I took this image following the osprey with a red dot gun sight mounted to the hot shoe...not looking through the viewfinder or liveview. This is how good eye-detect AF is.

View attachment 219158
How much better is the AF going to get? I have dozens of these from about 90 minutes when the tide was right. And if/when I do want better AF, would the R5 II really be the camera I want? Or the R1? By the time you add a grip, it isn't that much more.

• Higher FPS. Sure, 30 is more than 20. And I do like the control over fps in ES (that is a quibble I have the the R5). But I almost always shoot EFCS at 8 to 12 fps when I want high frame rates. I like having 20 fps, but I rarely use it. The mechanical shutter specs are unchanged.
• Less rolling shutter. Taken at face value, this affects those using ES and video. Not that critical for me. However, the underlying driver of less rolling shutter, faster readout speed, might actually help with AF between frames. That would be a benefit. A marginal benefit, but again, if this is important, then the R1 has even faster readout speed.
• Pre-capture. Yeah...that is a nice feature.

While I agree that the DR difference between the R5 and R5 II are likely meaningless, the fact that they are lower, even meaninglessly lower, when improvements I see appear fairly marginal or irrelevant for me, I completely get why some people might wonder if glass is a better investment at this time:


I am also eye-balling a few different lenses at the moment. If I do not get the R5 II or....R1.
I suspect Canon will be getting some money from me in one form or another.

Wonderful photo. Thanks for sharing it and your thoughts.

 

[stochasticmotions]

With the three stacked sensor high MPixel cameras really having mostly the same dynamic range within about half a stop at the ISOs that I shoot most of the time the questions now come down to who has the best camera for the money. Currently Nikon has excellent value for money but I have no Nikon lenses so that would mean another cost and the autofocus is good but not quite as good as Canon or Sony. So between a brand new Canon R5 II and a 4 year old Sony A1 costing $2000 more it would seem to be an easy choice.

At the moment though I'm going to wait a bit to see how the R5 II actually works for a few months to see if there are any issues (I'm a bit gun shy after buying the R5 as soon as it came out and had issues with it until I sold it) which will give Sony some time to maybe put something on the market that actually will compete with these cameras price wise. Even if they dropped the price of the A1 it would also need to have some more firmware updates to stay competitive, so odds are still better that the R5 II will be on a lens here within the next 4 months or so.

 

[basketballfreak6]

As a former user of a 5D4 and now of a R6m2 I can tell you, that I have the same „subjective“ experience of the R6m2 sensor delivering more detail.

Nice to know it's not simply confirmation bias. I tend (try) to be as level headed as possible.

I've always said spec sheet often don't tell the whole story, the experience can be very different in actual use.

Case in point, I was quite critical of Canon relying on correction with the RF 14-35L lens, until I downloaded a few raw files to play with; I shut my mouth and went out and bought a copy lol.

 

[Zadak]

Ok so, from what I understand, the Dynamic Range is the same as R6MII, but the readout is much faster.

Now, imagine if we could make the readout speed slower on-demand (it should be possible in software?) for better dynamic range for STATIC subjects?

 

[dafrank]

If its about less noise and less unsharp pictures, I don't see why I should reject AI. Call it manipulation if you want, but editing is nothing else.
Where to draw a line is a very personal decision, but photography is always kind of an interpretation of OUR reality.
Besides, even in film times, objective photography didn't exist. Velvia users know what I mean...

Agree. Reminds me of when I was a pioneer in non-prepress digital manipulation (“retouching” and compositing) in the automotive car photography business. At first, agencies and OEM’s told me they couldn’t use my work because it “wasn’t real.” That was very funny, because for a decades before they finally accepted my digital work, many others before me and I supplied them with film from shoots in which literally fantastic and plainly artificially enhancing prep was done to the vehicles, after which they sent the film off to “analogue” retouching artists who literally painted changes on the film or prints from it, not even to mention the sometimes extreme perspective distortion and in-camera masking techniques that we used on our large format view cameras. Same song, altered lyrics.

 

[AlanF]

Agree. Reminds me of when I was a pioneer in non-prepress digital manipulation (“retouching” and compositing) in the automotive car photography business. At first, agencies and OEM’s told me they couldn’t use my work because it “wasn’t real.” That was very funny, because for a decades before they finally accepted my digital work, many others before me and I supplied them with film from shoots in which literally fantastic and plainly artificially enhancing prep was done to the vehicles, after which they sent the film off to “analogue” retouching artists who literally painted changes on the film or prints from it, not even to mention the sometimes extreme perspective distortion and in-camera masking techniques that we used on our large format view cameras. Same song, altered lyrics.

Using a very wide aperture for a very narrow depth of field that is much less than the eyes sees is real manipulation as is bokeh and artificial distortion from lenses.

 

[Quack]

...

Regarding A1 vs A7RV, the dynamic range is not meaningfully different from the A1. In fact I would argue all of these modern full frames have dynamic ranges close enough to each other that it shouldn’t be the primary decision maker.

And every gear head who doesn't understand this should write it on the blackboard 100 times! (Younger readers forgive me as you probably have no idea what a blackboard is...) And yet, here we are 10 pages in. Perhaps it should be stated more clearly...DR comparisons don't matter anymore (and probably never did). Learn how to take a good photo and *ppffft* DR concerns go bye-bye!

 

[justaCanonuser]

Here you are: The R6ii looks significantly lower at lowest iso in ES and no difference in mechanical, with the caveats in my last post.

View attachment 219055

The low ISO performance with electronic shutter, when the camera switches from 14 to 12 bit, is really a bit shocking. I think there is plenty of room for Canon to improve the next generations of the R6 line in that respect. Fortunately, Canon still adds a mechanical shutter, what gives the option to use a decent low ISO DR. The R5 II's "inverted" ISO 400 bump is really funny, as others already said here

 

[SvO2]

It depends on what you are photographing and the number of Mpx on your sensor - the smaller the pixels, the fewer the aliasing artefacts. I used the Nikon D850 for a year or two. Its 45 Mpx sensor without an AA-filter gave superbly sharp images and only very, very rarely aliasing artefacts. The R5 sensor isn't quite as sharp and I have never had any Moire problems with it. I did with the 5DIV on occasion. Canon tends to be conservative. I read somewhere but I can't vouch for it as I am not into video that Canon uses the AA-filter for the video side of things.

So curiously, the beloved R100 apparently has no AA filter and resultantly the highest resolving ability of any Canon camera (including the R7 and 5DSR) based on their testing.

So yeah, I remain skeptical that the difference is as pronounced as being measured. Subjectively looking at comparison shots of AA and non-AA cameras with otherwise identical sensors (5DS vs 5DSR, D800 vs D800E), the difference doesn't seem as drastic as bumping the linear resolution by 20%. I wish they reported error bars instead of just reporting their best measurement out of a dozen attempts. I suspect, but cannot prove, that the cameras without the AA filters would have larger variability in measurements depending on how the lines end up being aligned to the pixel grid.

Test Canon EOS R100 - Rozdzielczość - Test aparatu

Test aparatu Canon EOS R100 - Rozdzielczość ...

www.optyczne.pl

 

[AlanF]

I suspect, but cannot prove, that the cameras without the AA filters would have larger variability in measurements depending on how the lines end up being aligned to the pixel grid.

View attachment 219179

Test Canon EOS R100 - Rozdzielczość - Test aparatu

Test aparatu Canon EOS R100 - Rozdzielczość ...

www.optyczne.pl

The Imatest measurement doesn't align pixels to a grid. It uses a slanted-edge method that gets round such problems, quote: "The slant makes the measurement insensitive to sampling phase (edge location relative to pixel locations)."

 

[Quarkcharmed]

Learn how to take a good photo and *ppffft* DR concerns go bye-bye!

Except cases when you need a high DR to take a good photo.

 

[Sporgon]

So curiously, the beloved R100 apparently has no AA filter and resultantly the highest resolving ability of any Canon camera (including the R7 and 5DSR) based on their testing.

So yeah, I remain skeptical that the difference is as pronounced as being measured. Subjectively looking at comparison shots of AA and non-AA cameras with otherwise identical sensors (5DS vs 5DSR, D800 vs D800E), the difference doesn't seem as drastic as bumping the linear resolution by 20%. I wish they reported error bars instead of just reporting their best measurement out of a dozen attempts. I suspect, but cannot prove, that the cameras without the AA filters would have larger variability in measurements depending on how the lines end up being aligned to the pixel grid.

View attachment 219179

Test Canon EOS R100 - Rozdzielczość - Test aparatu

Test aparatu Canon EOS R100 - Rozdzielczość ...

www.optyczne.pl

I’ve never been able to understand the Optyczne resolution results. They had the G1Xiii down as very poor resolution which was contrary to other optical review sites and my experience over five years with the camera.

 

[AlanF]

I’ve never been able to understand the Optyczne resolution results. They had the G1Xiii down as very poor resolution which was contrary to other optical review sites and my experience over five years with the camera.

They haven't done the quantitative resolution measurements described for ILCs above for the G1Xiii.

 

[David_B]

Except cases when you need a high DR to take a good photo.

DR is not enough to take good photos now, you also need a high frame readout. Just don't tell those with "slow" sensors.

 

[Quarkcharmed]

DR is not enough to take good photos now, you also need a high frame readout. Just don't tell those with "slow" sensors.

There's a big fallacy in a reasoning of this kind.

Your can get a good photo with low DR camera and low frame rate, but that doesn't necessarily mean you don't need a higher DR or a higher frame rate camera.

The more capable your camera is, the wider range of conditions you can shoot in and get great photos you wouldn't have got with a less capable camera.

Saying 'higher DR isn't necessary' exposes someone who doesn't understand how to utilise the dynamic range of one's camera.

 

[Richard CN]

Ok so, from what I understand, the Dynamic Range is the same as R6MII, but the readout is much faster.

Now, imagine if we could make the readout speed slower on-demand (it should be possible in software?) for better dynamic range for STATIC subjects?

for static?

yeah just use AEB and call it a day.